Skylar Mitchell, of Naples, Fla., attached homemade labels to two-liter bottles that he used to collect money to donate to the East Rockaway Education Foundation for Hurricane Sandy relief. His mother, Karen Mitchell, is a 1985 graduate of East Rockaway High School.

Then the mission started to collect empty two-liter bottles — a hard task for the Mitchell’s since they’re not soda drinkers. “We rinsed, tore off labels, taped copies of his art work on them, and melted holes in each bottle for changed to be placed in them. Sky even got out his bank and put a dollar’s worth of change of his own money in each of them to get the ball started. His hard work over his holiday break paid off and we packed up 45 bottles and delivered them to school so they would be in every classroom when they returned.

“We still have about 15 bottles to prepare to put in some local business which has agreed to display for the month as well as a pizza establishment which is going to hold an open house for the foundation and 10 percent of sales would be given back for contribution. I told Sky that I would email a few friends in our industry around the US and overseas so they would know what he was up to and see if they would like to contribute as well.

As of now, Skylar has collected about $300 — and he’s just getting started. “We are all excited about what the month of January will bring in,” said Mitchell.